Tag Archives: edit-a-thon

Ada Lovelace was a pioneering computer scientist
and mathematician of the 19th century. Since 2009, on the second Tuesday in
October individuals around the country and globe gather to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day by commemorating her life and raising the profile of women and
LGBTQ+ persons in the STEM fields. To honor her legacy, a group of librarians
at UT planned and facilitated a daylong Wikipedia Edit-a-thon scheduled for
October 8, 2019.

Beginning in earnest in mid-August, four
librarians including Gina Bastone, Roxanne Bogucka, Lydia Fletcher, and myself
sat together at a table in the Physics, Math and Astronomy Library to
brainstorm ideas and organize what would turn out to be an amazing experience
and very meaningful event. The event drew more than 45 participants from across
campus to learn about the Wikipedia editing process and get inaugural edits
under their belts.

To organize a successful Edit-a-thon event
requires considerable planning in addition to forethought and purpose. Some of
the initial goals were to improve the visibility of women in STEM fields, to
teach first-time editors the quirks of Wikipedia editing, and to democratize
the process of editing Wikipedia, which itself is largely contributed to by cis
white men. Creating an accessible and drop-in event where folks could learn
something, grab some food, and edit in between classes was also a priority.
Starting the research process, identifying useful Wikipedia-friendly sources on
top of creating content was a high order to meet in addition to orienting
participants to the editing process. Reflecting on our cumulative past
experience it was agreed that structuring the event to be largely self-guided
was the best approach. Recognizing that the average participant may spend about
an hour between classes at the Edit-a-thon, librarians identified pages that
required editing and organizing sources ahead of time, focusing specifically on
local women in STEM. We reached out to campus groups such as Women in Physics,
Gender & Sexuality Center, and CNS-Q, who proved helpful by
enthusiastically providing support in word of mouth and extra sustenance on the
day of the Edit-a-thon.

One of the event organizers guides a participant through the structure of a Wikipedia article.

We organized the day through a system of Google Drive links and physical sticky notes to ensure that only one person would be editing one article at a time, while retaining the ability to have more than one contributor to each article on the day. Using this system of sticky notes to identify topics for editing, each person would grab a note with a unique scientist’s name off the board, hold on to it while editing that topic and then return it to the board if the entry still needed further edits. The Google Drive folder contained supporting material for our selected topics in addition to a wealth of curated training documents. Many of these training documents were reused and can be reused again in the future. These tools allowed us to plan and coordinate an event without having a required time for a formal demonstration.

Three of the event organizers standing in front of the whiteboard used to organize topics.

The Edit-a-thon was wildly successful and drew
participation from many first-time editors in the College of Natural Sciences.
While the turnout was better than we had expected, the true success was in the
feedback. All of the respondents to our survey agreed that they had learned
about editing Wikipedia and the construction of articles at the event, and 87%
said that they plan to continue editing into the future. The goals of the
planning group had been met and exceeded, encouraging us to run further events
teaching the ins and outs of contributing to Wikipedia.

Most people think of SXSW as a giant party. But a for a group of us from the UT Libraries this year, SXSW presented an opportunity to make Wikipedia a more welcoming and representative place for LGBTQ+-identified people.

It started with an idea from some great folks at WNYC Studios, a public radio station in New York, to host an LGBTQ+ Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon during SXSW. WNYC produces the acclaimed podcast Nancy that covers modern queer identity. Hosts Kathy Tu and Tobin Low were at the festival to present on diversity in podcasting and wanted to do more in their off-time while in Austin. They noticed that many queer and trans topics don’t have robust Wikipedia pages, if they had pages at all, so they decided to tackle these significant information gaps.

I linked up with them in January, when they had the wisdom to reach out to librarians in Austin to assist with this event, Keep Wikipedia Queer. Event planning is more than one-person job, and I was able to partner with some graduate students from iSchool Pride, a group from the School of Information.

As we began planning, we realized that many people from UT might not be in town during SXSW. To encourage as much UT participation as possible, we decided to host Queering the Record, a pre edit-a-thon research event at the PCL during the week before Spring Break. Queering the Record provided structured time, space, and snacks for librarians, students, faculty, and staff to use library resources to identify topics that need Wikipedia pages and collect a list of sources that could be used and cited by edit-a-thon participants. More than 35 people attended Queering the Record, and by the end, we created a 23-page Google doc that we were able to share and work from at Nancy’s Edit-A-Thon.

Speaking of Nancy’s event – it was a lot of fun! During the 4-hour event held downtown, we met people from around Austin and around the country, all of whom are passionate about LGBTQ+ representation. Seven folks from UT attended, including some PCL Graduate Research Assistants, and we connected with a librarian from the City University of New York system. As a group, we edited more than 70 Wikipedia pages on topics as wide-ranging as comedian/blogger Samantha Irby, LGBTQ+ rights in Syria, Austin’s QueerBomb celebration, and the children’s book series Frog and Toad.

The response to both of these events from students and staff was so positive that we hope to hold more LGBTQ+ Wikipedia edit-a-thons in the future!

A group photo from the SXSW event Keep Wikipedia Queer, including librarians and student staff from the UT Libraries. Photo by Jeanette D. Moses/WYNC

Special thanks to iSchool student and PCL GRA Elle Covington for her contributions to these events!